


Burns holes in your skin

by elisabethjj



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Magic Made Them Do It, Sex Pollen, Silas ships Klaroline, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Unresolved sexual tension gets resolved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-02-01
Packaged: 2018-03-10 01:20:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3271493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisabethjj/pseuds/elisabethjj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Silas's latest attack on the Mystic Falls gang leaves Caroline in an extremely, um, uncomfortable physical state from which she is unable to relieve herself. Left with no other option, she turns to Klaus for help- but is he up to the challenge? Klaroline fic; set somewhere near the end of season 4.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One day you fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I definitely do not own TVD or these characters.

Caroline squeezed her legs together and whimpered pitifully, fighting against the wave of lust sweeping over her body. Nearly two days since Silas had laughed in her face and issued this vengeful curse, Caroline was going out of her mind. Every cell inside her was suffused with want; yearning for a release that, as hard as she tried, Caroline couldn't find.

It was humiliating, as Silas had no doubt intended it to be.

When it had started, Caroline had been furious, seething at the untamed arrogance of the ancient witch who had nerve to violate her like this. She loathed the lack of control over her own feelings and actions. Even Damon's abusive compulsion of her back in her human days hadn't rendered her so completely enslaved to an outside influence like this.

As the hours had passed however, and the knots of desire burning in her darkest places flexed and grew in strength, Caroline found she had no energy to spare maintaining that level of righteous indignation. It was all she could do to keep her concentration on anything other than the downright painful level of frustration she was burdened with.

For the first 36 hours Caroline had turned off her phone and locked herself into her house. The thought of confessing to any of her friends what Silas had done to her made her want to die; she would rather suffer alone. After all, nothing he had done to any of them so far had lasted for that long. It hadn't taken long for Caroline to realise the agonising truth that, no matter how Caroline touched herself or what racy fantasies she allowed to flow through and overtake her mind, her orgasm was utterly beyond her reach. Even worse was that the more she tried, the hotter her desire burned.

She had tried everything to take her mind off it, hoping it would go away like Klaus's pain had miraculously disappeared when she'd distracted him. When sundown rolled around on the second night, Caroline had been forced to admit defeat and, desperate for something to end this embarrassing and uncomfortable situation, managed to pull herself together enough to head into town. It was almost funny, she had thought as she glanced in the mirror on her way out of the door: this was probably the only time Caroline Forbes had ever got ready to go out in the space of ten minutes, but it was possibly the hottest she had ever looked. Caroline knew her eyes were blown with lust, her cheeks flushed with her arousal and her skin had that mid-sex glow about it. All in all, she had barely looked decent. All Caroline could pray was that she found what she was looking for without bumping into anyone she knew.

If it had been possible, Caroline would have driven to somewhere outside of Mystic Falls, but she knew full well she was barely in a condition to operate a vehicle as things were. She'd decided the over 21's club on the far side of town would have to do: at least she knew none of her friends even hung out there and she could compel the doormen to allow her entry. It was Saturday night, and it wouldn't take Caroline long to find a man willing to take care of her very serious needs. Forcing herself to push any thoughts of her sexy hybrid estranged-lover from her mind, Caroline had tugged her dress into place and headed out to get laid.

It hadn't worked.

Two hours and three rounds with a hot as fuck pre-law stud called David had Caroline literally growling and cursing in agonised frustration. She'd gone all out and made sure David did everything that usually had her coming like a freight train- all to no avail. Caroline didn't even vaguely have it in her to fake her pleasure for the man's ego. With a quick bout of compulsion to ensure David forgot the freaky blonde who'd dragged him out of the club and climbed him like a tree before they even got back to his mid-town apartment, Caroline was on her way.

With legs that were practically trembling with the effort of focusing on movement, Caroline felt, for the first time, genuinely scared of what this might do to her. The raw need thrumming inside her bones was taking over her mind and all she could think of was how badly she needed to come. Even now, sitting in the car again and squeezing her legs closed to feel some friction, it was all she could do not to reach her hand back inside her sopping wet panties and start the fruitless task again of attempting to stimulate her clit to orgasm. She was already missing the feel of David filling up that throbbing space between her thighs. The guy had been useless in the face of Silas's magic but Caroline's intense need had been momentarily and minutely dimmed as she'd taken him inside her.

Caroline gritted her teeth as another intense bout of horniness made her hyper-aware of the feel of her bra against her tight, hard nipples. Before she knew what was happening, she had burst into tears. It was a horrible, strange feeling being so turned on and so miserable at the same time, crying while the inner walls of her pussy contracted uselessly around nothing. Caroline knew she had reached breaking point. There was barely any dignity left to preserve and, even though the rational part of her mind questioned her sanity at what she was about to do, Caroline was piloted by instinct at this stage. There was one person she knew who might be able to help her and, God help her, she was too desperate not to ask the Original Hybrid to take pity on her. At this stage, it was either this or call Stefan—a thought that made Caroline shudder for entirely different reasons. At least Klaus was depraved enough to take something like this in his stride. Sure, his ego would love it a bit too much, but Caroline was well beyond caring and, even if Klaus ridiculed her to the whole town afterwards, really there didn't seem to be another option.

:::

'Caroline,' Klaus answered his phone immediately as she dialled him. 'Why are you phoning me from inside your car on my driveway?'

Damn hybrid super-senses, Caroline cursed silently. Having managed to drive to the Mikaelson mansion without causing any major traffic collisions, she just needed to start this conversation with a little more distance than a face-to-face with Klaus provided. She should have known Klaus would be aware of her as soon as she got within a mile radius of his home. Desperately willing herself to keep it together a short while longer, Caroline rushed to explain herself as clearly and firmly as possible.

'Please don't come outside, Klaus. I know it's weird, just—'

'Caroline? What's wrong love?'

Klaus's honeyed British accent caused another instantaneous rush of wetness between Caroline's legs and she couldn't completely suppress a tortured moan. Naturally, Klaus heard that too.

'Are you injured?' he demanded, sounding confused and—maybe—something else from the more angsty end of the spectrum of difficult-to-pin-down Klaus emotions. Caroline was far from in the mood to linger on that right now.

'I need your help,' she admitted, hating the neediness in her voice. This was possibly the most pathetic she had ever felt since becoming a vampire. Impressive when one considered the stiff competition; in the past year alone Caroline had been subject to a brutal reconditioning attempt by her own father, tortured by werewolves and had her neck snapped by Hayley The Backstabbing Were-Whore.

'Ok,' Klaus was saying. Caroline knew that he must be really exercising self-control not to step outside the house. 'You know I'll help you, love. So why don't you want me to see you?'

'It was Silas,' Caroline whispered, hating herself more because of the shiver of erotic pleasure Klaus's voice had caused to run down her spine. She gave in to the need to pant until she could get her breath back. God, if this was over the phone then she dreaded getting within touching distance of the hybrid. It had been difficult enough over the past few months to ignore her growing attraction for the charming, playful, knowledgeable parts of Klaus that were at times almost captivating. It would be too easy to forget that he had driven away the boy she loved out of cold, sadistic vengeance, after murdering Tyler's mother no less. It would be too easy to forget everything—all the lives and loves destroyed by Klaus—when he started letting her behind the Original Douchebag mask to see the full fucking rainbow of personality traits that made up this millennia-old creature. They were barely at the start of a tentative state of truce—albeit that Klaus had made it clear his crush on her was still alive and kicking—and now this was happening.

It seemed to the blonde vampire like a big cosmic fuck you for all the effort she had put into not being seduced by Klaus.

Klaus, who was—holy shit, Klaus was standing in the doorway of the mansion, staring strangely at her as she gasped for breath in her driving seat. He was, to Caroline's lust-addled brain, even more incomprehensibly delicious to look at than usual. Her eyes immediately picked out the necklaces peeking out from Klaus's thin, cream-coloured Henley, before her gaze travelled back up to that lightly stubbled jaw line.

'What has Silas done to you?' Klaus asked, hanging up the phone since Caroline's vampire ears could quite easily pick up his voice across the twenty or so yards between them.

'I— um, he...oh, God...' Caroline trailed off. Embarrassment was searing through her so fiercely that Klaus could surely read the horror on her face. Deciding to rip off the bandaid, metaphorically speaking, Caroline stepped out the car and vamp-sped across the driveway until she was right in front of Klaus. The hybrid's eyes widened as he quickly scanned her from top to bottom, probably checking for injuries but no doubt seeing exactly the truth of the situation. Caroline remembered the girl in the mirror earlier and she would bet any money she looked even more of a reluctant sex-kitten now—the picture of wanton desperation. It was beyond mortifying. 'I—' she tried again, but ended shaking her head terrified as she met Klaus's eyes.

'Ok, love,' Klaus said, steadily, reaching to support Caroline by her shoulders. At the contact, Caroline moaned and allowed herself to fall forward and rest her dampening forehead against Klaus's shoulder. She couldn't bring herself to care that Klaus's body tensed quickly, undoubtedly in shock at her uncharacteristic willingness to touch him. Caroline was more concerned with the lean, hard muscles she could feel underneath Klaus's shirt, as she steeled herself not to press herself more firmly against him.

There was a whoosh of displaced air and Caroline was being settled down onto a wide, comfortable sofa in Klaus's private study before she even fully realised he had picked her up and brought her inside the mansion. Klaus crouched on the floor in front of Caroline and levelled a concerned gaze at her that betrayed nothing of their deeply twisted history of enmity and assassination plots.

'You have to compel me,' Caroline blurted out, pleased that she could still remember the idea that had prompted her to seek out Klaus for help.

'What?' Klaus's eyes widened fractionally, once again. If this kept happening they were going to end up Disney-huge, soon enough. 'Compel you to do what? Caroline, you haven't even explained to me what's going on yet.'

Caroline whined in embarrassment and closed her eyes so she didn't have to look him in the eye as she told the (extremely abridged version of the) story.

'Silas showed up a couple of days ago and tried threatening me again about getting Bonnie to do his evil bidding. I may have been a bit reckless. Words were said. Witchy curses were invoked. And now...' Caroline gestured sadly down across her own body. She shifted uncomfortably on the sofa as her clit started throbbing in earnest again; she blamed that on the intoxicating scent of Klaus's shower soap wafting across the small gap between them. 'NowI'mpainfullyhornythewholetimeandIcan'tgetoffat all.'

'What did you say?' Klaus practically coughed, seeming to suddenly need to stand bolt upright and take a couple of steps back from the sofa before he cleared his throat.

Caroline brought her hands to her face briefly, as if that would make a hole in the ground appear for her to fall into and escape this situation.

'This is so humiliating, Klaus,' she said, miserably, braving a peek at him through her fingers. 'Please don't mock me.'

'I'm not,' Klaus said, dropping back down in front of her again. He licked his lower lip nervously, which of course sent Caroline's womb into a vicious dance of joy, but he had his game face on again at least. The Original Hybrid Alpha With A Good Plan And A Bad Attitude face, as Caroline privately thought of it.

'I'm not mocking you, love,' Klaus repeated. 'I'm just trying to understand.' He glanced over her body again. Caroline felt her skin turn to gooseflesh everywhere his gaze landed. 'I can see you're, well, very aroused, Caroline,' he said, carefully. 'So, you're saying that this has been going on since...'

'Thursday night,' Caroline groaned. 'Please compel me already.'

'Caroline, I genuinely don't mean to offend so please forgive my impertinence, but,' Klaus's eyes burned intensely, 'have you tried taking care of the problem, um, personally?'

'Oh my god!' Caroline raised her arms to her head and grabbed at her hair in distress. 'Yes, Klaus! Do you think I would have chosen to turn up here and speak to you about this truly horrifyingly embarrassing situation if I could just rectify this by spending some quality time with my Rabbit?'

A small part of her brain wondered if she'd really just admitted to Klaus that she used a sex toy, but it was drowned out by the larger, currently more hormone soaked parts.

'I have tried everything,' she paused and glared meaningfully at her would-be-saviour, 'and I mean everything I can possibly think of. I can get excruciatingly close, but no fucking cigar. I have thrown away my last scrap of dignity and practically jumped some stranger's bones tonight, like some kind of bitch in heat.' Caroline cringed as she remembered her behaviour, noting from the annoyed set of Klaus's jaw that he didn't seem to be terribly impressed either. Well tough shit, he wasn't the one who had to live through it. 'The guy was hot, he was hung and we did everything that usually, you know, works. Nothing.' She threw her hands up again, gesturing angrily. 'Nothing!'

'Sweetheart,' Klaus began, tersely, but Caroline wasn't done.

'Do you think I want to degrade myself by acting like the town slut?' Caroline demanded. 'This is agony. I can't control myself at all. I hate Silas—he's violated my feelings and my hormones and, just, all of me! I feel like I'm going insane. I am so turned on it hurts. I ache and I want and all I can think about is getting some m—'

'Caroline!' Klaus interrupted, thankfully before she could take that particular thought to its conclusion. 'Calm down, love, try to calm down a bit.' He took the distressed blonde's face in his hands and tilted her gaze to meet his own, holding her there with the gentlest of touches. Caroline took some deep breaths and let herself centre on those clear blue eyes.

'Do it,' she whispered, willingly handing herself over to Klaus—someone she would never at one time have believed she would trust with anything—to take control of her mind. Caroline hated compulsion more than almost anything, but this torture was unbearable and it had to be stopped. She needed to be free, and ironically she placed her hopes on Klaus's compulsion to make that happen.

'What exactly do you want me to compel you to do?' Klaus asked softly, still grazing his thumb against Caroline's cheek. He obviously wanted to leave this as much in her control as possible, which she would probably be grateful for later, when she could concentrate on anything except the flames of desire consuming her from inside out. 'I mean,' Klaus smiled a little, 'we don't want to do any permanent damage to your libido. That would be an unforgiveable sin.'

'Just make it stop, please,' Caroline begged.

'Ok, alright love,' Klaus promised her, his voice soft and soothing. As Caroline gazed impatiently into his warm, expressive eyes, Klaus let his pupils dilate and suddenly Caroline felt the world fall away as his compulsion took hold. Even though she had asked for this, the young vampire found she was unable to quell the fear that gripped her when her whole being succumbed instantly to Klaus's power. She was losing herself in Klaus's gaze; his to bend and shape to his will. 'Caroline,' Klaus was saying, and the strength of his voice vibrated through her body, tangling and knotting around her vital organs, seeping into her skull and thickly coating every thought she had ever had. 'You will do exactly as I say.' Caroline nodded, accepting his instruction completely and without hesitation. 'You are strong enough to fight against the feelings that Silas has tricked your mind into believing are real. You will reject these feelings right now. Your body is not overcome with lust—right now you are not physically aroused. You are calm, comfortable and in control of your body. You are in fact completely physically sated. Silas has no influence over your sexual desires or arousal.'

Caroline felt a strong pulse of power hit her as Klaus seemed to gather and push his compulsion onto her. Then the hybrid blinked, and his eyes returned to their normal, less hypnotic state. He settled back on his heels and tilted his head thoughtfully.

'How do you feel?'

Caroline took stock of herself, as she was abruptly released from Klaus's compulsion. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the ache between her thighs, the hyper-sensitivity of her skin, and the frissons of pleasure leaping through her body that kept her nipples permanently hard little peaks. Opening her eyes once more, she studied the fullness of Klaus's lips and groaned when she realised she still had the overwhelming desire to suck on his lower lip until his mouth opened for her, hot and wet against her tongue.

'Oh noooo,' she whined, in a strange mix of despair and excitement. 'It hasn't worked, I'm still—oh God, Klaus, I—'

Unable to contain herself a second longer, Caroline slid forward into Klaus's lap and nearly cried as her breasts found delicious friction against the taut planes of his chest.

'Shit,' Klaus muttered, inelegantly, as he got an unexpected lap full of Caroline. He couldn't believe that Silas's magic was strong enough to override his compulsion. 'I've got you, love.' He rearranged them at lightning speed so that his knee was pressed between Caroline's legs, leaving her free to grind as she needed to. Caroline was past rational thought, gratefully taking the minimal relief he offered, wantonly writhing against Klaus's jean clad thigh and whimpering at the stimulation. 'Let's try a different approach,' Klaus growled, using one hand to balance Caroline and the other to grip her chin and pull her eyes back to his own. Once more, he drew her into his gaze and released his compulsion with full force.

'Come, Caroline,' Klaus commanded, voice rough with his own desire. 'I want you to come for me right now.'


	2. It hurts when you look

Caroline's eyes widened at Klaus's words and her lips parted around his name. She wasn't sure anything in the world had ever sounded as fucking sexy as Klaus Mikaelson ordering her to come for him.

Still locked to his eyeline, Caroline felt her body strive to obey the original hybrid's compulsion. She had been so turned on for so long now that she was already easily on the brink of orgasm. Of their own volition, her Klaus-serving muscles worked together to start the wave of intensely pleasurable contractions in her womb. Her breath came in pants and a thin sheen of sweat beaded over her body, every fibre of her being working hard to bring herself to ecstasy.

'Yes, Klaus, please,' Caroline gasped, frantically working her hips against him and relishing in the feel of Klaus's arms holding her safely in place as she struggled in his lap.

'Come on, sweetheart, let go,' Klaus compelled her again. His eyes were as dark as Caroline could ever remember seeing them, contrasted only by the ring of yellow signifying the alpha wolf inside him was perilously close to the surface. Caroline cried out in joy as her body lurched clumsily to do Klaus's bidding and she felt herself reach that perfect plateau of pleasure and skate tantalising close to the edge. She needed to come. He had told her to, and she had to obey him. The compulsion screamed through her, pushing her nearer and nearer to completion.

Which was where she stopped.

Right on the precipice of a terrifyingly intense orgasm, cradled in Klaus's arms, every pulse and shiver of pleasure laid bare on her face as she stared helplessly into his dilated pupils.

'I can't,' she whimpered, practically sobbing out the words. Klaus broke the compulsion and continued to look at her in bemused indignation. 'I'm stuck right at the edge,' Caroline told him, starting to panic, 'and it's sooooo good but I need to come so fucking badly. It's too much, oh God, I can't take it for much longer. What am I going to do?'

'Bloody hell,' Klaus said, blinking owlishly. 'Let me think a minute.'

The scent of her arousal was nearly overwhelming him; he'd been rock hard since resting her on the sofa, but he had to stay objective and work out what the bloody hell was going on here. He'd felt Caroline accept his compulsion, seen her body try to force itself to obey his command. Whatever curse Silas had put on the young vampire was irritatingly strong and it was really start to piss Klaus off. As delightful as the sight of Caroline panting with desire was—and you'd better believe Klaus was storing every detail of her aroused, trembling state in the bank for serious after-the-fact consideration—Klaus wanted it on his terms. In exactly none of his fantasies had the blonde girl been brought to her knees with lust because of Silas. Truthfully, Klaus was uncomfortable seeing Caroline in any kind of distress, especially when it wasn't of his own doing. He was even less enamoured with the fact he could actually smell on her the lingering stench of the human she had fucked earlier, the scent marring his enjoyment of Caroline's overwhelming natural musk.

Silently vowing that Silas's eventual demise would be that much more painful that Klaus had already planned, Klaus slammed down the emotional shutters and considered the problem at hand. So far, every mindfuck Silas had inflicted had been short-lived once they'd figured out the catch behind each sinister parlour trick. When Klaus had felt the agony of white oak poisoning his body, the 'joke' had been that it turned out the hallucination was only fuelled by Klaus's own imagination. As soon as he'd concentrated his emotions on that argument with Caroline, the pain had vanished. Silas had tricked Klaus into torturing himself for hours with the only thing the immortal, indestructible Original Hybrid truly feared: his own death.

Stefan's turn had come last week: a run in with Silas left him battling sudden and vicious blood frenzy, trapped in a state of delusion, only to find eventual relief once he had drained and dismembered a hallucinated apparition of his Ripper-self. Klaus rolled his eyes at the spectacularly obvious way Silas had taunted Stefan's fear of himself and his own darkest desires.

With Caroline, the 'why' was obvious—the young vampire hated not being in control of herself. Her life was a constant battle to be in the driving seat. In control of her popularity, her image, her insecurities and secret heartaches, her perfectly toned bikini body... her bloodlust. For Caroline, being at the absolute mercy of her baser desires would be torture of the purest form. Klaus just had to figure out the escape mechanism, whatever hoop it was that Silas wanted Caroline to jump through.

'What did he say to you?' Klaus asked, darkly. He was trying not to give too much thought to the dampness seeping into his jeans from the unrelenting grind of Caroline's crotch against him. 'What did Silas say when he did this to you?'

'Um,' Caroline bit her lip and tangled her hands unthinkingly in Klaus's blond curls. 'I can't really...mmm...'

'Caroline,' Klaus snapped, which made her jerk her head up in annoyance and, at least temporarily, she seemed to emerge from haze of sexual craving that been taking over.

'Ok, jeez,' she muttered. The sulky effect was somewhat ruined by her fingers raking exquisitely down the back of Klaus's tshirt. 'Silas said...he said...Right, I remember. He was threatening the usual—make sure Bonnie does what he tells her, convince you and Elijah to hand over the cure or he'll kill everyone I love, blah blahdity blah. So I got annoyed and, um, may have told him that just because he's an ancient, ugly freak who got eternally cockblocked when he friend-zoned a superbitch, it doesn't give him the right to take his sexual frustration out on—'

'For pity's sake, Caroline,' Klaus interrupted with a Stefan-esque eyeroll. 'Do you have no instinct for self-preservation?' Caroline blinked up at him, a little sheepishly, at the same time as slipping her hands under the hem of his t-shirt to palm the tensed muscle of his abs. Klaus gently removed them before the conversation could careen off track. 'I get the gist, love, but what did Silas actually say when he cursed you?'

'Something about—No, I remember it pretty much exactly, 'cos of how creepy and angry Silas looked when he said it. He said I should learn what it's like to be cursed by my soul's desire, tormented and unable to ease my frustrations because I cannot have what my heart and my body won't stop wanting.' There was a long pause, as Klaus digested that information and Caroline not-so-subtly rubbed her breasts against the hybrid's chest. 'Plus,' Caroline said, her breath coming in harsh pants again now, 'he was dressed up as Elena at the time, so it really wigged me out.'

'Ok, love,' Klaus said, moving from the floor to standing in a vampire-flash, Caroline still pressed to his front but now finding herself carried once again in his strong arms. 'Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to make a phone call to a witch friend of mine—back in the day she had somewhat of a penchant for sexual curses, so she might have some useful information to help us.'

Caroline nodded, looking at him gratefully. Klaus, brushed a sweat-soaked lock of hair off her face and smoothed it behind her ear. Her pathetic whimper tugged at heart strings Klaus had almost existed, and he felt an overwhelming surge of protectiveness for Caroline. Seeing the strong, feisty vampire in such a state of discomfort and need was something Klaus easily decided he was not in a hurry to witness again.

'While I call Mariette, why don't you help yourself to a shower, love. Might make you a bit more comfortable.' Plus it would remove the offending scent of the human male from Caroline's delightfully fragrant skin, Klaus thought privately.

'That would be good,' Caroline sighed into his shoulder.

Klaus wasted no time speeding them through his home, upstairs to the spacious ensuite bathroom in his own personal quarters. He gently set Caroline down on the mottled grey floor tiling and pressed a light kiss to her forehead.

'Help yourself to anything you want—there's clean towels in the dresser.' Klaus glanced around the room, then reluctantly stepped back from the young vampire. 'I'll be downstairs making that call. I won't be long.'

:::

Caroline looked around Klaus's bathroom dazedly, feeling a bit like she imagines Alice must have done after falling down the rabbit hole. It was all too much for her to take in. She could barely deal with the electric, heightened super-charged state her body had been gripped in for the past two days—a condition not exactly eased with proximity to Klaus, the man whose dimpled smile turned her insides to liquid on a normal day. On top of that, Caroline was not going to think too deeply about the utter weirdness of being in Klaus's bathroom, surrounded with really normal things like shower gel, a laundry basket and a freaking spare toothbrush by the washbasin, still in its little paper packet. Logically, Caroline knew that even Klaus Mikaelson, the Original Hybrid famed for his acts of brutality, vengeance and megalomania, had to brush his teeth. Still, though. Weird.

Doing her best to ignore her more pressing needs, Caroline quickly stripped out of her short, flower-print dress and her favourite black heels, hesitating before throwing her soaked panties down with them. She stepped into the oversized shower, stood under the waterfall head and let lukewarm water rinse the evening off her skin. If only she could erase it from her mind so easily, Caroline thought bitterly. She found Klaus's shower gel and began to viciously scrub the last traces of David-the-pre-law-stud from her body.

Naturally, the smell of the soap was like a tidal wave of Klaus crashing out of nowhere, making her shudder with suppressed want. Caroline leaned against the cool surface of the cubicle wall and tried to will away the heat pooling in the belly. She wanted Klaus so badly she could easily scream with frustration, but she didn't want him like this. She had made an art form these past few months of denying, even to herself, whatever feelings or attraction existed between Klaus and her. Caroline wasn't naive enough to believe she could make their connection disappear, but she knew she wasn't ready to face up to it yet. Not when Klaus's treatment of Tyler, and Caroline by extension, was still a fresh, angry scar. Not when she had to look Elena in the eye and know that Klaus had harmed her in so many ways, even taken people that she loved away from this world forever. Not when the damp earth had yet to settle over Carol Lockwood's grave.

No, Caroline didn't want Klaus like this. She didn't want to have to think about any of this yet: what it might mean to give in to the sparks between them, or how a person who dealt so much death might be the person to make her feel truly alive. She wanted time, and space, and the chance to do this on her own terms, without losing herself in Klaus and the world he chose to inhabit.

Caroline couldn't stop herself caring for Klaus, couldn't make herself hate him for the things she absolutely should loathe him for, but she certainly didn't trust him yet either. As much as regretted her casual encounter with David earlier tonight, she knew in her heart she'd been right to try and do this without Klaus. Their whole relationship was about threats and betrayal, saving each other only to lash out once again. Klaus was the last person in the world she wanted to be vulnerable in front of. The man—monster—that she most needed to keep her emotional distance from.

Yet all Caroline could think about now was the ways she could imagine Klaus making her scream in ecstasy. The man was a thousand years of sexual experience wrapped up in an obscenely rakish, blue-eyed package. Advice from his witch friend was all well and good, but Caroline needed Klaus to share his wealth of physical experience with her trembling body, right the fuck now.

Decision made, Caroline switched off the shower and wrapped a towel around her body before stepping out into the main room of Klaus's private living quarters.

:::

Klaus was stood at the window, his back to the room and to Caroline. She bit her lip as her gaze took in the long, lean lines of the hybrid's body. He was by no means the most physically imposing man Caroline had known but, as always, something about Klaus screamed of danger coiled darkly just beneath the surface. With the right look, he could set the nerves of even the fiercest predator on edge. An aura of dominance practically flowed over him in a mantle of unyielding, unrepentant strength.

At her soft sigh of longing, Klaus turned and Caroline found herself the burning focus of those twin blue flames. Heat unfurled anew inside the darkest corners of her being; she had never wanted anything so much. This was so different from her disastrous experiment with casual sex earlier that night—for the first time, Caroline felt a glimmer of hope that this could be the thing to fix her. Maybe she'd been wrong that Klaus's compulsion would save her; maybe what she needed was Klaus himself. She was burning alive and he was made of flames but... maybe.

'Are you feeling better, love,' Klaus murmured, lowly. His eyes had darkened in response, she supposed, to the truckload of take-me-now-you-sexy-hybrid-stud pheromones she must be flooding the room with.

'Not really,' Caroline replied, honestly. She was done holding anything back from him. Klaus smirked softly and cocked his head, watching her intently.

'I spoke to the witch—' he began, but Caroline couldn't contain herself any more and flashed across the room to press right into his personal space, breathing warmth up into his face. She was consumed with sharp fragments, all straining and wanting and aching.

'Klaus,' she breathed, voice husky with the strain of her desires. She reached one finger up and stroked a line down the side of his face, through the scruff of his designer stubble, with gentle, teasing pressure. The woman in her was proud to notice the catch in Klaus's breath that he tried to cover with a low growl. Enslaved by the heady yearning that wouldn't abate, she was losing herself—out of time. 'Did Mariette tell you anything that is going to get me some relief in the next ten minutes?'

'I'm afraid not, sweetheart,' Klaus admitted. He hadn't touched her yet, but neither had he moved to put any distance between them, which Caroline thought must be a sign in favour of him doing what she desperately needed him to do. Namely, her.

'Are you going to make me beg?' she asked, trying not to let her voice waver as she looked him in the eyes. That wild blue fire flashed brightly again, and Klaus seemed to lean infinitesimally closer to her body.

'No, Caroline,' he murmured, capturing her face ever so gently between both of his hands. Her heart almost stopped, borrowed blood lurching hotly in her veins. 'Just tell me you're sure you really want this.'

An almost hysterical half-laugh bubbled up from Caroline's chest, before she answered Klaus the only way she knew how.

Rising up on her toes, she pressed her lips to Klaus's and gave herself over to the hedonistic pleasure of Klaus Mikealson's mouth. He tasted, she idly thought, like the best kind of sin; sweet and sharp and suffocating. Klaus wasted no time before taking control of the kiss, using his hands to cradle her skull and cover her throat while his mouth moved languidly over hers, all heat and pressure, alien and heart-thuddingly sensuous. When she felt his tongue lick into the cave of her mouth, coaxing her own tongue into a wanton, erotic exploration of their mutual passion, Caroline nearly imploded with the sensory overload. She felt the hand at her throat drop down to where she had knotted the towel above her breast, and a moment later the material slipped uselessly to the floor, leaving her writhing and naked against Klaus's fully clothed body.


	3. It hurts when you don't

Klaus's arms wrapped around Caroline's trembling form, pulling her tightly against his body. A growl resonated deep in the Original's chest, vibrating up to where the pair's mouths were joined in passionate union. The sound sent a thrill through Caroline's nervous system and she struggled to cope with the dual overload; the spell's continued assault on her libido in tandem with the sheer excitement of being touched in this possessive and intimate way by Klaus, the Original Hybrid, and the sire of her bloodline.

She wanted this, Caroline realised. As much as her body wanted satisfaction and release, Caroline wanted to find all that with Klaus, to experience being Klaus Mikealson's lover. The wolf in him was already close to the surface—a side of Klaus that Caroline knew he rarely showed, despite the lengths he had gone to for the sake of unharnessing his lycan genes. It had been enough of a threat that the wolf was there, a primal and ferocious mate to the blood-hungry monster that was already an inextricable part of Klaus's essence. Now, the woman and the vampire in Caroline wanted the wolf to take her, to claim and possess her.

Caroline broke the kiss to gasp for air. She was a tiny but disappointed to realise Klaus's face was still human; his wolf and vampire both still kept at bay. However, she could not stay disappointed for long when his gaze held such heat, such promise, that she felt her face flush at the sight. Klaus practically smouldered at her as he left one arm wrapped around her back to easily hold her up, and let the other hand trail a path of flames down the side of her body—caressing her shoulder, the side of her breast, the curve of her waist—and finally curl possessively into the juncture of her thighs. Caroline moaned lustfully, too turned on to be ashamed at the way her legs automatically parted to encourage his exploration. Klaus kept his eyes on the blonde young vampire as he stroked the dripping wet cleft his fingers encountered, parting the folds of luscious flesh to run delicate pressure along the length of her womanhood. His thumb sought out tight bud that begged for his attention, and Caroline's head fell back—a sharp cry torn from her lips—when Klaus used his thumb to rub the slick little button. A further unintelligible noise was dragged from her lungs as Klaus slid a finger inside her, right to the second knuckle.

'Shhh,' Klaus soothed her, in the barest of whispers, bringing her head forward again only to examine her face with a look that was somewhere between wonderment and lust. His finger explored gently inside her heated passage and growled appreciatively when Caroline's walls contracted greedily around him. At some point he'd added a second finger, and Caroline had never felt so consumed by a lover's hands, but she knew she needed more. Klaus was watching her every tiny movement and expression like she was a fascinating puzzle and Caroline had the distinct impression he was searching for information and that somehow, without knowing what he was asking, she was giving him all the answers.

'Klaus,' Caroline practically moaned out his name, as she pressed her hips up against his hand in a fairly undignified display of her desperate want. 'I need...please—'

Before she had time to work out how to beg without actually begging, Caroline felt the familiar rush of the room displacing around her and Klaus was laying her down gently in the middle of his bed. The soft cotton sheets were cool against her back, but Caroline had no time to relax into her new surroundings before Klaus was kissing a wet path between the valley of her breasts and down the middle of her stomach. He paused to look up at the panting, lip-biting mess of a girl beneath him, before lowering his head between her legs.

'Oh, god!' Caroline exhaled. 'Please, Klaus...'

The Original's hands slid under her ass, lifting her heated centre firmly against his mouth as he lapped at the moisture there. One palm smoothed a path up her thigh and lingered at her knee, urging Caroline's legs to spread wider for him. Caroline cried out at the sensation; Klaus's answering moan vibrating against her clit in a way that had no right not to cause instant orgasm. More, Caroline thought, she needed more. She needed Klaus inside her. For crying out loud, he was still fully clothed and it was really making the whole situation that much more indecent.

As if he could read her mind, Klaus's tongue made one final exquisite flourish over the heated nub of flesh he had captured between his lips, and then he released her with a smirk.

'I just needed to do that for a moment,' he murmured, with a strange glint in his eye. He kneeled up on the bed, by her thighs, and stared down at the beautiful girl he was so entranced by. Caroline watched as he licked traces of her juices from around his lips—his casual movement was so naughty and erotic that it turned her insides into mush and she was pretty sure her face revealed everything she was feeling in that moment. Klaus's mouth twitched into an almost smile and she knew she was busted, but he didn't call her on it and his face returned to that intense, almost serious, smoulder as he made short work of stripping out of his clothes.

Caroline had to suppress a gasp at the sight of Klaus, suddenly naked, looming over her in all his magnificent male glory. He wore his skin as confidently as he wore his usual designer attire, and why shouldn't he? Caroline thought to herself. Those perfectly sculpted abs and biceps that had, to Caroline's chagrin, been all too much on her mind since the disastrous white oak incident, were just as mouth-watering as she remembered. The hotness of Klaus's fully nude form was quite possibly enough to ruin Caroline for any other lover—a surprisingly intense thought that twisted her stomach into nervous knots. Caroline couldn't help let her gaze trail lower to linger fleetingly on the defined cut of Klaus's hips, his muscular thighs, the dark blonde hair tracing a very happy trail from the soft looking skin of his navel down to his—holy hell—fully erect and generous-sized cock. Caroline blinked, bit her lip, and tried to battle with her instincts to blur across the distance dividing them and sink herself down onto him, taking what she so desperately needed.

'I've got you, love,' Klaus murmured, as he moved quickly to position himself over Caroline and nudged her legs apart. 'There's so many things I would like to do to this beautiful body,' he said, teasing her folds apart with the swollen head of his cock, sending shudders of delicious friction dancing across Caroline's pleasure centre. When he spoke again, his voice was even deeper and husky with a depth of emotion that frightened Caroline. 'Right now, though, I just want you to take what you need, Caroline. Don't be afraid.'

Klaus slid into her in one forceful movement and Caroline, her body slick with evidence of her desire, welcomed him inside her. She almost purred with primal joy at the feeling of Klaus stretching and filling her so completely; so hard and unyielding inside her soft flesh. Slowly, Klaus withdrew almost fully from her body and then, his eyes locked to her own, slammed back into her. Caroline's mouth fell open with the intense pleasure and Klaus seemed to react to this by pinning her hands with one of his own, above her head, and starting a sinful rhythm with his hips, thrusting and rolling in turn, fast and just on the edge of rough. Caroline undulated beneath him, absorbing and meeting his movements with mindless abandon.

Nothing had ever felt like this before, and after mere minutes Caroline was at the edge of her sanity, freely begging Klaus to take her harder and deeper. She capitulated easily as the Original tugged at her legs, bringing them up over his shoulders and, a few minutes later, pressing her knees back towards her own shoulders and pinning her there. Her supple cheerleader limbs bent without complaint and somehow Caroline wasn't surprised that Klaus knew her body well enough to judge what she could take. She was utterly open for him, her most intimate parts indecorously on display and as Klaus drew back slightly to adjust to the new position, she saw his eyes focus on his unencumbered view of where his shaft moved purposefully in and out of her. It was overwhelming, this feeling of being penetrated more deeply than she ever had been. Klaus's gaze snapped up to meet hers, and she whimpered, unable to look away but feeling unbearably vulnerable. His eyes flashed a hint of yellow and then back to the tempestuous blue, speeding up as he angled his thrusts to hit her sweet spot over and over again, an unbearable endless pleasure and made her yelp and mewl in trying to absorb it all. He was everywhere, his free hand tweaking at her sensitive nipples, scratching down her arms, dipping a finger inside her mouth or cupping her bottom as he thrust even deeper into her.

'Caroline,' Klaus whispered, in a strangled sigh, and crushed his lips down to her own, all bruising and full of teeth. He barely gave her time to draw breath before he had flipped her over and pulled the blonde vampire onto her hands and knees.

'Ah, Klaus,' Caroline pleaded, whimpering in relief when the Original Hybrid pushed back inside her from his new position. He allowed her a moment to get used to the new angle, pausing to brush a damp tendril of blonde hair back from her forehead. Caroline shivered in ecstasy, just feeling Klaus stretching her open and tugging her body so intimately against his own chiselled muscles. His hands stroked over her breasts and stomach, and then moved back to her hips to grip her tightly as he started to move. He took her hard, fast and deep; it was all Caroline could do to hold on for dear life as Klaus showed her what it meant to be fucked. It was vaguely terrifying, being so completely at the mercy of such a man—such a monster. Caroline thought she should feel differently about it, perhaps, but all she could feel was a bone-deep pleasure that washed through her limbs and sent electric currents along her veins. She couldn't believe she was on all fours, letting Klaus of all people fuck her into next Sunday, and loving every moment. He was perfect; this was perfect. She could feel the pressure building inside in all the right places. She could barely stand how much she craved what he was doing to her. With her body arching towards her lover and his fingers snaking round to tug roughly at her clit, Caroline dropped her head and cried out in reckless abandon for Klaus to take her over the edge that loomed blissfully closer. If he would just keep doing what he was doing...

A while later—and she didn't know exactly how long it had been— Caroline broke through the haze of her pleasure when Klaus's movement unexpectedly slowed and stilled. Distressed and frustrated, Caroline wiggled against him, chasing him backwards with her hips as he withdrew from the core of her, his cock still hard and inviting.

'Caroline,' Klaus murmured, a dark edge souring his tone. 'C'mon love, stop that now.' His grip on her hips tightened as he coaxed her frantic movements to a halt. Caroline whimpered at the loss of contact, meeting his gaze with wild eyes and more than a hint of confusion.

'Please, just keep trying,' Caroline all but begged him, turning round to face him on the bed. Who was she kidding? Her dignity was somewhere on the bathroom floor with her underwear and she'd deal with the consequences of that later. Right now she needed to make Klaus see that he just couldn't give up on her.

'As much as I hate to say this,' Klaus said, 'we might be overlooking the key issue here.' His stormy gaze flickered across her face and she leaned into the fingers that brushed a sweat-soaked lock of hair back off her cheek. 'The spell set a very specific condition for you. If my witch acquaintance is right then you have to meet the literal criteria mentioned by Silas if you want to defeat the curse.'

Caroline stared at him impatiently.

'I'm kind of not in the best frame of mind to deal with your cryptic super-villain subtext right now,' she gritted out. 'Could you please just tell me, very simply, what the hell you're talking about?'

She watched as his lips twisted into an unpleasant kind of smirk; one that Caroline was all too familiar with.

'You need to have what your heart and your body can't stop wanting,' Klaus repeated Silas's words back to Caroline. 'Sweetheart,' Klaus shook his head, 'I think we could redefine the Kama Sutra tonight and you still won't be able to find your release because you aren't doing what your heart wants.'

Was he serious? Did he really...? Caroline was shocked into silence for a moment, which gave Klaus the opportunity to continue his maudlin little theory.

'I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but I guess the body really can't lie,' he almost laughed, though the sound was curdled with bitterness. 'Distance clearly does make the heart grow fonder. If Tyler—'

'No,' Caroline interrupted him, before she had to hear him suggest—as she lay naked and wanting him—that her ex-lover was the key to her heart and her freedom from this torture. She didn't want to think about Tyler right now. Whatever youthful dream of love they had or might have had was completely separate from the twisting, grating assault taking place on her heart since Klaus Mikaelson had crawled into the dark spaces inside her, prodding at the bruises and rattling her bones.

'Caroline—'

'No, Klaus,' Caroline slung right back at him. 'That's not the problem.'

'Wonderful as your glass half full approach is, love, even Miss Mystic Falls can't sweet talk an ancient warlock curse into changing its parameters,' Klaus scoffed.

'My heart is just fine.'

'Your heart is—what do you mean? What the hell does that mean?' Klaus snapped his jaw shut with an audible click and Caroline started to wonder if just letting herself descend into agonised, irreversible madness might be the way to go here. Fuck Silas, fuck Klaus and fuck having to deal with this shit at all. If she survived today, someone was going to die for this.

Caroline pressed her head back into the pillow and squeezed her eyes shut. The weight of Klaus's expectation suddenly seemed to bloat the air, depriving her lungs of oxygen she had no call to depend on.

'It means my heart is fine, Klaus,' Caroline said quietly, without opening her eyes. 'Right now, I am letting myself have what my heart wants.' After a long moment of uninterrupted silence, Caroline forced herself to open her eyes. Immediately, she was caught in the burning blue inferno—now reflecting a turbulent, almost violent, level of emotion. Klaus hovered above her, unmoving as a statue yet undeniably, viscerally alive. Trapped in that ancient stare, Caroline felt stripped down beyond mere nakedness. This was why she didn't want to be here, wasn't ready to be here, like this, with him. Not yet. He was too much. His power was consuming and terrifying. She wasn't that woman yet— the woman that could handle him; stand before him and beside him without bending to him and letting him remake her in blue fire and blood.

'I see,' he finally said, eloquently. The beginnings of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

'Yeah,' Caroline said, uncomfortably. 'Let's not make a big deal of it. So— are we going to get back to the hot hybrid-vampire sex?'

'Undoubtedly,' Klaus smirked, shaking his head at her deliberate crudeness. His voice deepened and his accent sharpened seductively. 'But it does beg the question, my dear Caroline—if your heart wants me and your body wants me, then why are you not screaming my name in bliss yet?'

'I don't—' Caroline began, breathily, suddenly finding speaking an issue again now that Klaus had re-deployed his A* game panty-wetting bedroom voice in her direction. Well, if she had been wearing panties, that is...

'Does your body want me, Caroline?' Klaus pressed, sliding thick and hard against the slickness between her legs.

'Omnh, yes,' she whispered, in an agony of pleasure.

'So why aren't you coming for me?' Klaus mused, gazing at her with alarming intensity, like her body was a puzzle he was going to be working on until he solved. Caroline shivered against him, pressing her hips up in a blatant invitation. Klaus ignored her, save to increase the strength of his tantalising strokes, providing her with more friction to enjoy. 'How much do you want me?' he asked, as he moved one hand to play with her nipples. Caroline moaned low and guttural when he plucked firmly at the rosy peaks, rolling and tugging until she was nearly insensible with the sensation.

'A lot,' Caroline whimpered. 'I want you very, very much.'

Klaus's eyes seemed to look right through her.

'Do you fantasise about me, Caroline?'

Holy crap!

'What?' Caroline gasped. His assault on her sensitive breasts was more than enough to make her come on any normal day. She was going to die—for real, this time. At this stage, she wasn't sure whether it would be Silas or Klaus who would be responsible. 'I... Well—Ahhh—Ok, yes! Um, I do...'

'What do you think about?' Klaus dipped his head to trace a ridiculously erotic pattern on her left nipple using the very tip of his tongue. What had he just asked? Oh, really? Caroline shook her head, trying to keep it together.

'Like I'm going to tell you—'

'My most recent favourite fantasy is having you in the woods,' Klaus said, interrupting her complaint. His tongue flickered out to wet the whole of her nipple suddenly, before his fingers resumed their delicious torment of the puckered flesh, leaving his mouth free to press a trail of wet kisses up Caroline's neck. His lips traced a hot path across the shell of her ear and he paused right there—his toned, lithe body pressing her down into the mattress and his breath warm against her ear. 'You're running from me,' he murmurs, 'but you're laughing. Playing. Teasing me like a very. Naughty. Girl.' Klaus nipped lightly at her neck to punctuate each word. 'I chase you through the moonlight and the shadows, and when I finally catch you,' Klaus paused, slipping his hand down to rest lightly, possessively over her mound, 'the spoils of the victor have never been as sweet as the way you submit to me.'

Was it just Caroline's imagination or was Klaus's voice getting raspier? He must seriously like this fantasy, she thought. Maybe she should have been embarrassed, but she hadn't got the energy for it, so she tried to relax into wherever he was trying to take her.

'You're naked when I push you to your knees and make you suck my cock,' Klaus continues. His voice is shockingly deep and so close to her ear and Caroline's so entranced she almost smells the forest around her, almost wishes to feel the heaviness of his heated, swollen flesh against her tongue. 'I let you have at it, impressing me with your talents, until I'm so aroused that I let instinct take over and I fuck your beautiful mouth as hard as I know you can take it.'

'Klaus!' Caroline made a surprised almost-yelp at his candid words, but he hushed her complaints and started stroking his digit finger against the swollen nub of her clitoris.

'Sweetheart, it's a fantasy,' he murmured to her. 'Just some of the hot, nasty little thoughts I have about you when I'm getting myself off. I know you have them too, and I need you to tell me what they are.'

'Why?' Caroline squeaked, helplessly, eyes rolling back in her head as Klaus's expert ministrations continued.

'It's the second part of the spell, love,' Klaus explained, gently. 'You need to indulge in whatever it is that your body can't stop wanting from me.'

'Fuck, no,' Caroline breathed. Was he serious? Could he be right? Silas must have been an epically twisted bastard to have thought this stuff up. It was too embarrassing. There was no way, just no freaking way she was talking Klaus through her x-rated daydreams about him.

'You can though,' Klaus urged her, and she realised she must have spoken out loud. 'Caroline,' he said. That piercing gaze seemed so honest and open that Caroline was taken aback. 'You can trust me with this, love.'

'No, I—I don't know...' Caroline worried.

Klaus pressed his lips to hers briefly, and rested his forehead on hers. Their bodies pressed together, skin tacky with sweat and limbs trembling with lust. Klaus knew Caroline's only chance was to give in to this as yet unmet desire of hers—he realised it had to be something specific. They had already ticked the box for general fucking and, if he did say so himself, in spectacular fashion.

'I've been around for a millennium, sweetheart—do you really think there's anything I haven't tried? Any sexual taboo I haven't explored? Any perversion I haven't sampled?'

Well, Caroline thought, when he put it like that...

'Your soul is pure light, Caroline,' Klaus continued, 'but you will learn to embrace your darker vampire nature—you have no reason to repress the full force of your sexuality. I meant it when I said that I fancy the knickers off of you but you know, love, that my feelings run much deeper than that.'

'Klaus,' Caroline gasped, writhing underneath his duel onslaught of words and hands.

'Never be afraid to ask for what you want,' he said, eyes blazingly serious. 'It's a gift to your lover, Caroline, not something to be embarrassed about. There is nothing you could ask of me, no desire you could confess, that would make me turn away. I delight in everything about you and I am greedy for all of it. I want to bring you every pleasure, explore every hedonistic, lustful thought that crosses your mind.'

Caroline cried out, desperate with anguish again as Klaus's fingers pulled sensations from her that should have had her hurtling towards ecstasy, only instead serving to frustrate and prolong this cursed freakshow. Was what he was asking really that bad, she wondered? Did she have any choice? Everything was becoming a haze of painful pleasure again and she wanted to rip her own flesh from her bones to end the wretched feeling.

Klaus took pity enough to remove his finger from her clit and instead plunged three digits roughly into her tight, hot channel.

'What do you crave, my love,' he asked, in a voice she was sure was quite deliberately full of erotic temptation. 'What does this delectable body want from me? Anything you ask is yours.'

'Aaah,' Caroline moaned, practically riding his hand with the frantic gyration of her hips.

'Shall I have you bent over the desk, taking me in a little too deep for comfort?' Klaus murmured. 'Do you want to submit to me, Caroline? Do you want to be punished across my knee?' Caroline shivered at his words, biting her lip while her face displayed a myriad of conflicting emotions to her lover. 'Tell me, sweetheart,' he said. 'Or do you want me at your mercy, perhaps? Would you like me to beg for you, Caroline?'

'No,' Caroline whispered, flushed and breathing hard as she shook her head.

Klaus tilted his head, considering.

'Maybe I'm neglecting where you really want me to be taking you,' he murmured darkly, his eyes shining and curious. Caroline raised her eyebrows in confusion, but squealed in alarm—and not at all a tiny bit of arousal—when she felt Klaus's fingers travel from her pussy to tease ever so delicately at the tight ring of muscles further in the cleft of her ass cheeks.

'Klaus!' Caroline squeaked, trying unsuccessfully to hide her innocent shock at what he suggested.

'No, ok,' Klaus quirked a cheeky smile, hoping to lighten the mood, 'maybe another time.' He was rewarded with an eyeroll from his blonde vampire. 'So what scintillating little fantasy are you so selfishly keeping to yourself then, hmmm?' Klaus sighed and gave her a stern look. 'What can I do for you Caroline? Please let me end this for you.'

'Argh, fine!' Caroline gave in, with a grimace. Though this was by far the most ridiculous and embarrassing thing she could contemplate, for some reason that she could not explain she did somehow believe that she could trust Klaus. Sex to him was just... sex. In the grand scheme of things, her naughtiest fantasies were probably the paler side of vanilla for a man of his experience. Besides, she needed this. Burying her head in his shoulder, she forced the words out in a rush of breath. 'Iwanootoohiehmee.'

Not even Klaus's Original-strength hybrid hearing could pick out the words.

'What did you say, love?' Klaus asked, carefully. Sighing, Caroline lifted her face the barest of millimetres away from Klaus's shoulder and repeated herself more clearly.

'I said, I want you to bite me. That's what I fantasise about, sometimes. Quite a lot actually. That you drink from me before, y'know, fucking me. Ok? Satisfied?' Caroline made a distressed noise of embarrassment and dropped her head back onto his shoulder.


	4. Someone's cut you open

Caroline could hardly believe she'd just revealed her fantasy to Klaus. A fantasy about Klaus, no less. A fantasy she'd kept locked so tightly inside, hardly acknowledged even to herself and only allowed herself to take sinful, traitorous pleasure in on those most dark and desperate of nights where the indulgence could be, perhaps, forgiven. The first time her mind had wandered, as she lay in bed and used her fingers to stroke herself to a long, aching orgasm, and the sudden unbidden thought of Klaus's teeth sinking into her flesh pushed her jerkily over the edge... well. She'd been mortified. Yet, it was an image that wouldn't leave and, to Caroline's shame, the thought only grew and developed into a dangerous, inhuman scene of desire that played out behind her eyelids time and time again. Klaus's yellow eyes glittering darkly. His hands wrapping too tightly around her trembling body. His bite; sharp vampire incisors and wolf teeth marking her, his mouth warm as it filled with her blood.

It was wrong, she knew. Wrong because, after everything Damon had put her through, being a vampire's chew toy was the last thing she would have ever thought would turn her on again. Wrong because Klaus's bite was venomous and he used it, cruelly and with malice, to hurt and manipulate people, even her, before. She had felt the pain of his bite tearing into her neck, his anger giving no quarter, when he'd lashed out in the wake of Kol's death. Wrong because he was Klaus and he had so much power already, the thought of submitting to him in such a basic animalistic way should fill her with dread, not get her panties damp. It was sick. She was sick, and now he knew. Oh god, now he knew and there was no taking it back.

'Caroline.' The roughness of Klaus's voice pulled Caroline from her mind-melding panic and she peeked up from his shoulder to see how Klaus would react to her revelation. If the half-wrecked look on the hybrid's face was anything to go by, turned-on was the overriding factor. Well. That was... she wasn't sure what that was, actually, but it didn't go in the bad column. 'You're going to be the downfall of me, woman,' Klaus growled. 'Why on earth would you hesitate to ask me that?'

'I...' Caroline blinked, taken aback at the feral look in his eyes. 'Um, I didn't really—'

'The only vampire in the world to be embarrassed about craving blood during sex,' Klaus muttered, gripping her face in his hands. 'Sweetheart, the biggest lust we have is for blood. It heightens every other lust, and every other lust is heightened by it.'

'Oh,' Caroline hedged, unsure of the conversation, despite Klaus's apparent ease with the subject. 'I hadn't thought of it quite like that, I guess. I mean, I've never...Um, y'know, it's not like I've actually...' She trailed off, cheeks flaming and hoping Klaus would get her meaning.

'You've never known the exquisite pleasure of sharing your blood with a lover,' Klaus murmured into her jaw line, lips brushing gently against the skin there. His clipped, smooth accent sent shivers down Caroline's spine.

'Nope,' Caroline squeaked, just as Klaus captured her mouth in a hot, demanding kiss.

'Mmmm,' he rumbled with pleasure as he released her lips. He drew back to look down at the object of his affections, spread like a heavenly hedonistic feast before him. 'It would be my absolute pleasure, Caroline Forbes, to make this particular fantasy a reality for both of us.'

'Ok,' Caroline murmured, still hazy from his kiss. She glanced shyly up at Klaus and, hesitantly, turned her head to the side so as to bare her neck for him. With a suppressed growl, Klaus grabbed hold of Caroline and moved them both at super-speed; so that he was sat against the carved headboard of his bed and Caroline was straddling his lap.

'Is this alright, love?' Klaus breathed warmly against her throat.

'Yes,' Caroline whispered, her voice tight with need and a frisson of fear at what she had invited Klaus to do to her. His tongue licked a wet path from her ear down to her pulse point and Caroline gasped. She watched as Klaus sat back and bit into his own wrist, lifting the wound to Caroline, offering the rich blood that welled there to the blonde vampire.

'To counteract the poison in my bite,' Klaus said. Caroline could already feel her fangs running down, and couldn't prevent the feral hiss that escaped her even before the black veins had finished spidering out across her cheekbones. Greedily, she fastened her mouth to Klaus's wrist and lapped up the powerful viscous liquid she found there. A few sips was enough, but she couldn't resist the allure of such a potent, delicious flavour and it was a minute before Klaus gently but firmly tugged her off his wrist and allowed the wound to close.

'Sorry,' Caroline cringed, but Klaus merely smirked and made no attempt to hide his wide lust-blown eyes and the effect she had on him.

'Never apologise for who you are, love. You're magnificent.' He brought one hand up to cradle the back of her head, grasping her hair in the process. 'You understand that when I drink from you the vampire and the wolf will both be coming out to play?'

Caroline swallowed, hard. Excitement, lust and trepidation tumbled together in her stomach, warring for dominance, and she was sure Klaus could hear her pulse pick up.

'Yes,' she answered.

'I would never hurt you,' he said, 'but the beast in me will possess you, Caroline. Don't fight me. It needs...I need your submission.' Caroline sucked in a breath and nodded. She could do this—she had asked for it. She needed it.

'Do it,' she said, with a lusty moan, 'please Klaus.'

With a growl, Klaus grabbed her ass, lifted and held her so that her soaking wet pussy hovered over the tip of his hard cock.

'While I'm inside you, Caroline,' he said, voice thickening with pure sex.

'Ah, god, yes,' Caroline whimpered her assent, practically dead in a puddle on the floor from the hotness of this man who was taking her to places she hadn't even known existed.

Suspended in the steady grip of Klaus's arm muscles, Caroline cried out with the pleasure as Klaus lowered her inch by agonising inch until he was fully sheathed inside her slick, velvety passage. Finally, she felt his strong thighs meet her backside and Klaus held her still for a moment.

'Are you alright sitting on me, sweetheart?' Klaus asked. He was big inside her; thick and immoveable. The heat of him, the warmth filling her up was overwhelming, and she was so full. Caroline suddenly understood the meaning of impaled, surrendering to the incredible feeling of her womanhood working to stretch around Klaus, taking him in completely. She was so ridiculously wet for him that her swollen pussy accepted him without discomfort. Her eyelids fluttered and she moaned her pleasure. 'Caroline?' Klaus urged, and she though she discerned a strained kind of smirk in his voice.

'Klaus,' she whispered, luxuriating in the new sensation. Klaus hummed as he set her weight down fully on top of him and Caroline moaned loudly again. She shifted her hips against Klaus, feeling the delicious friction, and rolled her pelvis against him in a languid fucking motion that she fully expected Klaus to escalate. Caroline was surprised when Klaus's hands found her hips, clamping her down so she couldn't move.

'What—?' Caroline raised her eyes, puzzled, just in time to see Klaus's face transform into the scary (and scarily sexy) visage of the Original Hybrid. Fierce yellow orbs took the place of his baby blues and the decadent combination of blackened veins tattooing his face plus the double set of fangs descending into brutal razor points had Caroline's heart racing. This was the man she welcomed into her body, into her heart. With a feral growl, Klaus pinned Caroline into place on his cock.

'Don't move,' he said. His voice was raspier than usual and his words warped slightly around his mouthful of teeth, but it was Klaus, and Caroline's body responded to him like ever. Instantly, she went pliant in his arms, and he gave her a terrifying smile before his hands moved from her hips; one arm coming around behind her back to support her (trap her) and the other hand cupping her head once again. 'Just feel me inside you,' the hybrid growled. 'You will come for me when I drink and I will be inside you when you do.'

A stab of heat tore through Caroline at his words, but she had no time to consider them before Klaus had tilted her head for better access, Klaus's fangs were scraping against her sensitive neck and Klaus was biting down, hard, straight into her wildly pulsing artery. His lips met her flesh, forming a seal around his bite and Caroline's face screwed up with a unimaginable feeling of him penetrating her so deeply as both a man and a vampire at the same time. She desperately clutched at Klaus's shoulders, trying to support herself as she opened herself up to him like never before, her blood and her body his for the taking. The effort of trying not to move where they were so intimately joined was causing her whole body to convulse and then... then. She felt Klaus began to drink.

Every nerve in her body suddenly ignited in aching, tempestuous desire. The sensual pleasure of Klaus drawing blood from her veins was beyond anything Caroline had experienced. It was beyond every fantasy she had envisioned. Her nipples tightened impossible more; her clit throbbed fitfully and every part of her—from her fingertips to her the soles of her feet—became an instantly stimulated erogenous zone.

The noises Klaus was making as he took her blood were the sexiest sounds Caroline had ever heard—alternating a possessive rumbling growl with a more human-like moan of desire. She was utterly powerless in the clutches of such a dominant predator, and the thought more than turned her on. Calling his name, Caroline sank heavily onto the hardness invading her straining pussy and tried to relax into his arms, letting him use her in every way as she allowed the sensations to swirl over her.

She had been on the edge of orgasm for so long now that at first she barely noticed when the tight, flexing pleasure spasms in her womb intensified that step further. Then suddenly, the feeling gathered and swelled with strength, leaving her in no doubt as to what was about to happen.

Pure elation rushed through her and she could focused on nothing but the animalistic enjoyment of Klaus bite sinking into her flesh and feasting on her life essence, his hard cock unmoving inside her but claiming her nonetheless—his utter domination of her being.

Every cell inside her contracted and released, the rhythmic pattern causing the blood to rush in her ears, her body writhing and straining of its own accord. Her body was covered in a fine sheen of sweat. The wetness between her legs was growing again, coating Klaus in a way she was absolutely beyond caring about. Caroline was utterly gripped in the midst of the deepest sexual pleasure she had ever known and all she could do was hold on for the ride. Without warning, a tidal wave of raw sexual energy took Caroline and swept her right to the edge of paradise. Without realising it, she was screaming out Klaus's name, squeezing the hybrid with all of her internal as well as external muscles, twisting and contorting in his arms like a woman possessed.

Klaus could feel the moment she let go. With a powerful shudder and a loud half sob half scream of ecstasy, Caroline came apart in his arms. He could only tether her to him as she soared through wave after wave of her orgasm; a drawn-out agony of pleasure that left the blonde vampire wracked and boneless, cradled in his lap.

It seemed to go on for an eternity but, when Caroline finally stopped coming, the relief that suffused her body from tip to toe was nothing short of bliss. The most incredible orgasm of her life, and she had experience it in Klaus's arms. Languid ripples of aftershock coursed pleasurably through her and the pure release of several days worth of tension had her almost giddy. Klaus had stopped biting her at some point, she realised, but as her surroundings came back to her she realised with a jolt that the hybrid was still inside her. Noticeably so.

The Original Hybrid in question was gazing at her, across the short distance where she had lolled back in his arms, and his yellow eyes glittered dangerously. Her blood still stained his mouth crimson like rubies.

'God, Klaus,' Caroline breathed, shifting slightly and feeling his heavy cock twitch inside her over-sensitive walls.

'Caroline,' Klaus said, breathing laboured. 'I want you to come again. With me.'

Caroline's eyes widened, just before she was picked up and slammed onto her back—the bed frame loudly protesting the treatment. Without ceremony, Klaus started thrusting inside her once again, this time with the ferocity of the vampire-wolf that he was. Mercilessly he pinned her to the bed and took her body over and over again. Caroline was quickly consumed with the whirlwind of sensation he caused in her. Grunting, Klaus grabbed her ass and raised it slightly to hit a new angle and then... oh! Caroline gasped and yelped as Klaus slid effortlessly over that perfect spot deep inside her, rubbing and stimulating the tender bump until her womb clenched and, incredibly, Caroline lost herself all over again to the excruciating perfection of Klaus playing her body like an instrument he crafted especially for himself.

'Mine,' Klaus growled, all blood and fangs and amber warning as he grasped Caroline's wrists tightly, pressing them into the mattress and holding her there as he pumped his final thrusts with inhuman speed. He came with a muted howl, pressing so deep into Caroline that she thought she might come again, just from the feel of him pulsing so thick and hot inside her.

'Mine,' he said again, reaching down to catch Caroline in a searing, messy kiss that breathed fire and blood and oxygen into her immortal lungs.


	5. With his fingers

Klaus's lips continued to caress Caroline's, as they held each other and basked in the afterglow; limbs heavy and minds empty. As Caroline began to come back to herself, the reality of her situation crashed down around her. Moving out of Klaus's embrace, she faced the ceiling and tried to hold onto the peacefulness that was left in the wake of her body's release.

She had just had the most mind-blowing, erotic, intimate sexual experience of her life... with Klaus Mikaelson. Gah! The things she had allowed him—even begged him—to do to her body. The way he'd touched her was beyond anything Caroline had known could exist. The cloying, suffocating, all-pervasive flames of wanting that had possessed her body were now gone—Silas's curse was broken. Now Caroline had to figure out how to live with what was left. Klaus had saved her... but at what cost? She had invited a monster into her bed. She had allowed him to see into her innermost heart, to see everything she'd worked so hard to keep locked away. Not to mention she'd thrown herself at him like a two-bit hussy and, with the barest of encouragement from the hybrid, given her body over to him without condition or reservation. She guessed she could take her body back, but the rest of her might not be so lucky.

This had so not been in the plan.

'Caroline,' Klaus's voice brought her out of her spiralling panicky thoughts. He was propped up on an elbow at her side and she had to fight really hard not to let her eyes wander appreciatively over the taut lines of his muscular body. 'How do you feel, love? About the spell, I mean. Does it seem like it's...done?'

'Uh,' Caroline swallowed hard and kept her gaze trained on the ceiling. 'Yeah. I feel, y'know, normal again.' To her annoyance she felt embarrassment washing over her in a flush of heat. 'I guess I should say thank you,' she said, tightly. She might be in the sole most uncompromising situation she could imagine—given Klaus's status as public enemy number one in Mystic Falls—but Liz Forbes raised a daughter with manners. 'Thank you for, um,' (shagging the hell out of her until she came like a freight train? Introducing her to the sheer erotic bliss of his bite drawing blood from her veins? Ruining her for any other sexual partner, like, ever?)... 'helping me out.'

'Hey,' Klaus said, calmly reaching across to stroke his finger down the side of Caroline's face. 'Don't do that.'

'What?' she asked.

'Don't pretend this was some sordid transaction,' Klaus said, frowning slightly. Dawn was creeping in, soft and pale, though the window panes. She'd been with him all night. 'You know how I feel about you and, excuse me for my bluntness sweetheart, I think we're past the point of pretending you are indifferent to me either.'

'I know,' Caroline admitted. She needed to get the hell out of this bed and into some clothes. Klaus was too overwhelming right now. She was exhausted, invigorated—a muddle of confusing and conflicting emotions that she couldn't start to work through with a very naked Original Hybrid next to her in a bed that smelt of the sex they'd just had. 'This was... I don't even know what this was. I'm not going to pretend I'm sorry it happened, even aside from the fact that I was going out of my mind with what that witchy bastard did to me. It's just...' Caroline trailed off and bit her lip, finally turning to look at the man lying next to her. 'Klaus, I'm all over the place right now. I'm so pissed at Silas I could tear something to shreds. I'm embarrassed at turning up here like this tonight—'

'Never,' Klaus interrupted her fiercely, with those serious full lips and brilliant blue eyes working full force on all her defences. 'You should never feel embarrassed, Caroline. You are stronger than you even realise—you radiate passion and life. Not to mention you're a stunning woman, so it's not exactly a sacrifice to ravish your body in the name of a good turn, sweetheart.' His lips quirked up at his last words and, in spite of herself, Caroline found herself responding with a small, wry smile.

'Ok,' she said, with a roll of her eyes. Swinging herself up off the bed, she vamp-flashed to bathroom to retrieve her clothing before she could stop to think about how nude she was in Klaus's presence. As if that should matter, she chuckled inwardly to herself, after everything they had just done. Somehow it did though, and so Caroline wriggled her way with some distaste into the black dress she had discarded on the floor some hours previously before emerging into the main chamber of Klaus's bedroom.

The Original was still lounging on the bed, exactly as she'd left him. He quirked an eyebrow, as if daring her to object to his continued state of undress. No, Caroline thought—she was a grown woman and would not give Klaus the satisfaction of seeing her be squeamish at this stage of the game. However difficult it was to concentrate on pure thoughts with him sprawled out on the rumpled sheets like the clichéd cover shot of some racy paperback. With that tousled bed hair and the Man Necklaces of Hotness resting haphazardly on his chest, Klaus looked practically edible and Caroline felt dangerously close to stripping off again and going back for round two.

As if he could read her mind, Klaus's smile widened and Caroline faltered, her eyes glancing for some safe harbour around the room. Her gaze fell on the old fashioned writing set arranged on an imposing mahogany desk by the window. With a sickening lurch to her stomach, she remembered Stefan telling her about the letters Klaus kept. The love letters he collected from his victims, trophies of their love for other men—love he had destroyed by seducing those women and taking their lives, separating them in spirit and in body from their husbands and lovers, forever.

This was the monster that was Klaus Mikaelson. He wasn't going through a phase or struggling to control his dark side; he revelled in it. Like Caroline had revelled in his touch, deliberately and greedily taking what she could, while she has some semblance of excuse for allowing herself the indulgence.

God, what was wrong with her?

'I have to go,' she said, noticing the dull edge of horror that had crept into her voice. Klaus noticed the change and leaned forward as if to sit up, but she halted him with a hand. 'Please,' she whispered, risking a fearful glance at his confused, handsome face. 'I need to leave.'

If Klaus answered, it was lost on the wake of the breeze as Caroline sped out of the mansion, away from something she was afraid she couldn't outrun anymore.

:::

'Earth to Caroline,' Elena said, waving a hand good-naturedly in front of her friend's face. 'Have you even heard a word we've been saying?'

Caroline cringed and looked sheepishly at her friends.

'Sorry guys,' she said. They were sitting in a badly lit booth at the Grill: Elena and Damon pressed close together on one side of the table, with Caroline and Matt taking up the other bench. Some time in between anti-Silas strategy sessions, Elena dealing with the aftermath of her sojourn away from humanity and trying to keep Bonnie away from the dark-side, they'd remembered that Matt still needed to eat on a regular basis and human food was pretty darn comforting to the rest of them too. Hence the truly impressive number of tacos that had disappeared in the last thirty minutes from the platter in the middle of their table.

'What's up with you, Blondie?' Damon questioned, curiously. 'First you disappear on us for most of three days, barely answering a text let alone a phone call, and now you're even more dazed and confused than usual.'

'Leave her alone, dude,' Matt complained, around a mouthful of taco. 'Care's going through a lot right now. It can't be easy learning to live without someone you love, but she's doing the right thing.'

'What?' Caroline practically squeaked, paranoid that Matt knew something about what had happened between her and Klaus. Matt looked at her with concern in his eyes.

'I just mean that I miss Tyler too, Care. I think you're handling everything real well.'

Caroline felt herself relax again, even if she did feel guilty at the thought of Tyler running from Klaus, wherever he was now. If there was any way to free him from Klaus's malicious edict, Caroline had sworn to herself she would find it. Tyler's fate was just another reason why she hated herself for the thoughts of Klaus that she hadn't been able to shake this past week. Every time she closed her eyes she was back in that room, feeling the slick press of Klaus's body against her most sensitive flesh, breathing in his exquisite, male musk as their mouths moved gloriously together. The ghost of Klaus's teeth sinking into the soft skin of her neck played havoc with her nervous system, night and day. Silas's spell had been unbearable torment, but she was starting to think now that the curing of one torment had only given way to another, different, kind.

'You are ok, right, Care?' Elena chipped in, when Caroline failed to make any reasonable response to Matt's statement. The brunette's eyes shone with that potent mixture of guilt, self-loathing and genuine love that had been present ever since the Salvatore's had forced her to flip the switch back on. She wondered if Elena was thinking about those cruel words she had hurled at Caroline while the doppelganger had been without her humanity. All those dirty thoughts you have about Klaus, Elena had mocked her. Not that she'd ever mentioned it to Caroline while she had emotions switched on, but Caroline supposed it wasn't a surprise that Elena had known of her friend's impossible attraction to their worst enemy. Elena had always been observant and, for the most part, she saw things because she cared enough about her friends to look. Caroline could only hope her latest indiscretions were something she could keep from Elena for a good long while.

'I'm fine,' she assured Elena and Matt (and Damon, if he was pretending to care today). 'I just really really want to work out how we can be free of Silas, without any more people we care about dying before graduation.'

'Did Silas do something to you?' Elena asked, as if the appalling thought had only just crossed her mind. 'Did something happen this week, Caroline?'

Of course, that would be the moment two blonde Originals appeared at Matt's elbow. Rebekah was simpering at Matt in the disturbing way she had taken to doing lately and Klaus looked his usual combination of dangerous, arrogant and charming.

'No,' Caroline lied, glaring somewhere to the left of Klaus's head and almost daring him with her firm tone to contradict her reply, 'but he's hurt all of us. I want him dead for the same reasons you guys do.'

She was sure everyone could see the effect that being in such close proximity to Klaus had on her body. After avoiding him for best part of a week, being near enough to breathe in his scent and hear that familiar accented voice was sending her stomach into somersaults. This was ridiculous. She willed herself to get a grip and Klaus to keep his trap shut.

To Caroline's surprise, as well as considerable relief, Klaus didn't take the opportunity to publicise the humiliating truth about Silas's latest attack.

'On that matter, I think we've found some common ground,' Klaus said, tearing his eyes away from Caroline and addressing the whole group. With his trademark cavalier attitude he pulled a chair across from the nearest table and, leaving it facing the wrong way, straddled it. 'Rebekah and I thought it was time we all get our heads together and eviscerate this son of a bitch.'

The fact that he was met with suspicious stares from around the table didn't seem to faze Klaus in the slightest. He glanced from face to face and paused when he got to Damon. 'Where's your brother, mate?'

'Kind of not in the mood for socialising at the moment,' Damon said, and he shifted closer to Elena as if someone might try and take her away at any moment. Which, to be fair, Klaus had a fair tradition of doing.

'I should check on him,' Caroline piped up, clutching at the opportunity to get away from the real life star of the surround-sound Technicolor graphic flashbacks she'd been living with since going to bed with Klaus.

'Of course,' Elena said, sounding even guiltier than earlier. Caroline shot her and Matt both a small smile and very carefully didn't look at Klaus as she made a break for the exit.

What was Klaus even doing, helping her friends? She knew perfectly well that if he decided to take on Silas he could do it without reference to any of them and he wouldn't care if they got caught in the crossfire. Right? Suddenly she wasn't sure. Nothing seemed to make sense anymore. Klaus's letters and Stefan's lists and a circle of twelve dead witches swam inside her head, too fast and too violent for her to make any sense of.

She made it almost as far as her car before a rush of displaced air announced Klaus's arrival beside her.

'Running away, love,' Klaus chided gently, leaning against Caroline's car in an irritating display of nonchalance. 'Didn't think that was your style, but it seems to be becoming a bit of a habit. Should I take offense?'

Caroline sighed, contemplating whether to leave her car and run for it. She decided it was pointless, since Klaus could catch her easier than breathing.

'I need some space,' she said, appealing to the gentlemanly nature that seemed to surface occasionally. 'I don't want to talk about what happened.'

Klaus smirked.

'Bet you've been thinking about it though,' he guessed, and watched Caroline's face tinge a beautiful deep pink. Well, she guessed she was out of luck with the gentlemanly thing. 'I know I have,' Klaus added, moving nearer and crowding Caroline's personal space. 'Sweetheart, you were amazing. I need to have you again. You were made to be mine.'

'God!' Caroline muttered, in frustration. 'I wish you'd stop saying that. Newsflash, genius—I'm my own person! What's up with your whole "mine" obsession anyway? You said it the other night when we—' Caroline snapped her mouth shut, realising too late where that train of conversation was heading.

Klaus's smile was entirely too smug for her liking.

'I'm serious,' Caroline said. 'I hope you don't think you have some stupid wolfy claim on me just because we slept together one time.'

'Caroline,' Klaus said, bringing his hands up to hold her face gently. 'Just take the compliment. The man in me craves you, the vampire in me craves your blood and the wolf? Honestly, love, I'm only just starting to get to know my wolf nature, but it seems to react pretty strongly to you. I seem to react pretty strongly to having you spread and writhing beneath me; giving it all up to me, sweetheart—allowing me the privilege of worshipping your body in all the ways you should be worshipped. I want to do it again. Let me, please.'

Caroline felt the heat sparking through her body, responding to his words and his touch. This was Klaus. How could he be making her feel this way? Ugh, she couldn't deal with this yet. She needed more time and, besides, she really did need to go to Stefan.

'Let me think,' she said, pushing Klaus away. Thankfully, he let her do so and she got in her car and put him in the rear mirror before he could change his mind. She'd face him when she was good and ready, she decided. Caroline Forbes rushed for no man, even if he was vampire pseudo- royalty and the best sex she had ever had.

:::

'How do you feel about me?'

Klaus leaned against the doorjamb and grinned. No doubt he'd have heard Caroline's car arrive nearly fifteen minutes ago; heard the blonde vampire walk up to his front door and pause, only to return to her car again; heard her muttering in her car before she made her second approach to his front porch and, finally, knocked on the door.

'Why Caroline, what a delightful surprise,' Klaus said, charmingly, gesturing with his arm that she should enter his home. With a huff, Caroline strode past him and stood in the middle of the foyer, eyebrow arched expectantly. Klaus only quirked an interested smile, his eyes taking in Caroline's determined posture and serious face.

'Shall we, love?' he asked, motioning to the living room she knew he and his siblings favoured when they were at home. When she had perched on the edge of one of the oversized armchairs, he moved to the sidebar. 'Can I offer you a drink?'

'No, Klaus, thank you,' Caroline said, firmly. 'I don't want a drink. I want some answers.'

'Ok,' Klaus said, sounding slightly amused. He took a seat across from Caroline and levelled an impassive gaze at her. 'Have at it, love.'

'How do you feel about me?' Caroline repeated, voice strong and clear. She was Caroline Forbes and she was afraid of no man, Original Hybrid or otherwise. 'The other night, you said that I know how you feel about me, but that's not really true. I mean, I know you care about me and,' she gulped slightly and tried to hide her girlish embarrassment, 'you like having sex with me.' Klaus's eyes blazed with undisguised want, and Caroline gathered her courage to press on as the tension in the room suddenly ratcheted up a few turns. 'I need you tell me what that means though,' Caroline finished, softly.

Klaus chuckled lowly and leaned forward.

'Quite simply, Caroline,' he said, his accent making the words flow like sweet syrup and rich blood. 'I am in love with you.' Klaus held her gaze as he made his confession. 'It's not something I was expecting, and it took me a while to recognise the feeling.' He chuckled ruefully. 'Somewhat out of practice, I suppose, but there it is. I care for you deeply, Caroline, and I want you to be mine.'

Every cell inside Caroline's body stood still as the meaning of Klaus's words washed over her.

He loved her.

She turned it over in her mind and found that, yes, somehow she believed him. It felt like the truth; she couldn't ignore the energy between them. This predator, this killer, this tyrant behind blue eyes; he really loved her. It didn't change what he was, but... But it did change something. Caroline just wasn't sure yet quite what that was.

The space between them suddenly seemed too much and Caroline longed to cross the divide of the room and climb into his lap. To lose herself in the scent and the feel of Klaus; such power and such history in one awful, wonderful, confusing mess of a man.

'I'm in love with you too,' Caroline said, suddenly. Klaus's eyes widened in surprise at her candid admission. In honesty, she hadn't been intending to say it either; hadn't even known for sure that she really felt it until the truth of the situation just hit her right now. 'You know that anyway,' she said, wryly. 'The spell...'

'I didn't—' Klaus began, and then brought himself up short abruptly. He cleared his throat, eyes shining strangely. 'It wasn't real until you said it to me.'

Caroline shifted in her seat.

'I don't know what this means,' she admitted, hoping Klaus would understand. 'Everything you've done, everything that's lead us here... It doesn't change I know feel about you. It's not just that you've done terrible things and killed people that I cared about, that friends of mine loved. It's that you'll do it again. I love you anyway, somehow, but what does that mean?' She giggled suddenly. 'You're a thousand year old vampire-werewolf hybrid on a power trip and I'm an eighteen year old blonde cheerleader newbie vamp who's scared of drinking from the vein. I don't see Friday night movie and pizza dates on the horizon for us.'

'You might be surprised,' Klaus said, smiling with her, 'at the things I would do to make you happy.' He titled his head, basking in sharing this moment of honesty with this girl who had turned his world upside down. 'And I'm not on a power trip,' he argued, as an afterthought.

'Oh, really?' Caroline said, raising an eyebrow. 'So, you're not so hell bent on controlling everyone around you that you keep enchanted daggers around to put your siblings down every time they do something you don't like.'

'Careful, love,' Klaus said, eyes narrowing slightly.

'Of what?' Caroline tested him, deliberately. 'Having a thought that you might consider disloyal? Questioning your role as supreme authority over your family—who forgive and return to you time and time again, no matter how much you hurt them—or over the rest of us? You aren't the centre of the universe, Klaus.'

With a growl, Klaus was out of his chair and Caroline instinctively moved to run from him, but Klaus was faster. She quickly found herself pinned against the wall, trapped within the cage of Klaus's arms on either side of her head. His breath fanned hot against her face.

'Wow,' Caroline deadpanned, trying hard not to let him see how he intimidated her. How could he not? Klaus was one of the strongest supernatural creatures on the planet, and he could snap her like a twig just for looking at him the wrong way. 'Do you see why I might not be chomping at the bit to be "yours", Klaus? Your behaviour changes at the slightest provocation and, frankly, it gives me emotional whiplash. Not to mention I can't be in a relationship with someone who thinks it's ok to physically back me against a wall just because I said something to upset him. I'm not a ragdoll; I'm a person you supposedly care about. Do you have any idea how to treat the woman you claim to love?'

With a controlled rumble of discontent, Klaus brought his arms down from around Caroline's head, so he was no longer pinning her against the wall but leaning into her like a lover. She relaxed slightly as she felt his face nuzzling into her neck, inhaling her scent, she thought. When Klaus pulled back to look at her, his face was a mask of loneliness that pierced her heart like a knife.

'No,' he said, steady but quiet. His fingers tangled with Caroline's as he grasped for physical connection between them. 'I really don't.'

:::

It was nearly three days later that Klaus appeared in Caroline's bedroom. She'd been sleeping, but woke at the feeling of another presence in the room. Her vampire eyes easily picked out Klaus's still form by the window, bathed in dark shadows and the heavy cloak of night.

'You know it's super creepy to just turn up like this,' Caroline murmured, sleepily. She sat up and ran her hands through the messy sleep-tousled locks on her head, trying to smooth them down. He might be a semi-stalkerish really old vampire-werewolf with anger management issues, but he was also a smoking hot guy in her bedroom and Caroline had standards, after all.

Klaus moved to the side of her bed and sat down, looking at her in a way that reminded her of the night he'd first fed her his blood and given her back her life, undoing the harm he'd caused her so unthinkingly. He reached to still her hand and took it in his own, moving it to his lips. She sighed at the warmth of those sinful, luscious lips brushing against her knuckles.

'It's been a long time since I've tried to be a man,' Klaus said, quietly, 'let alone a good one. The vampire and the wolf have ruled in me for too long.' He paused and Caroline let her eyes flicker up to meet that endless blue gaze. The intensity in his stare made her gasp, stomach churning with emotion and every part of her yearning to be closer to him.

'Klaus—' Caroline whispered, but he hushed her with anther kiss brushed against her palm.

'You were right, Caroline. I don't know how to treat the woman I love.' His eyes were filled with wonder and that awful vulnerability as his gaze swept over her face. 'You're radiant, pure of spirit, so very beautiful, and I never want to hurt you or break even the tiniest part of you. I want to learn how to love you, as you deserve to be loved, Caroline Forbes.'

He leaned forward and pressed the most delicate of kisses to the side of her mouth.

'Will you wait for me?' Klaus asked her, before capturing her mouth in a kiss that seared into her soul, clawing into her heart and burning holes in her skin.

Caroline found that her answer was not no.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't say enough how much I have enjoyed reading all of your reviews over the course of this story. Thanks to each and every person who has taken the time to leave feedback or to have a PM chat about this fic—it truly makes it all worthwhile.
> 
> The title for this story is a phrase I pinched from this beautiful prose by author Maureen Medved, in her novel 'The Tracey Fragments': "One day you fall for this boy. And he touches you with his fingers. And he burns holes in your skin with his mouth. And it hurts when you look at him. And it hurts when you don't. And it feels like someone's cut you open with a jagged piece of glass." It puts me in mind of Klaroline.


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